Mason Spirit is published three times a year by the Office of Advancement and Alumni Relations in conjunction with the Office of Communications and Marketing.

Faculty Books

Professor Mark D. Uhen in Mason’s Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences has long been fascinated with cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) and how they’ve evolved throughout history. While it’s common scientific knowledge these creatures evolved from terrestrial mammals, it was recently discovered that whales evolved from artiodactyls—the “even-toed ungulates” like cows and hippos.

In his first book, Free Speech and Unfree News: The Paradox of Press Freedom in America (Harvard University Press, 2016), Mason historian Sam Lebovic takes a historical look at freedom of the press and asks new questions about the role of the press in American democracy.

In the new book Deadly Injustice: Trayvon Martin, Race, and the Criminal Justice System (New York University Press, 2015), Mason criminology, law and society professor Devon Johnson and coeditors Patricia Y. Warren of Florida State University and Amy Farrell of Northwestern University use the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case to explore how highly publicized criminal cases shape public opinion about offenders, the criminal process, and justice in the United States.

It was at the 2012 Society for the Study of Southern Literature conference that Mason English professor Eric Gary Anderson and coeditors Taylor Haygood of Florida Atlantic University and Daniel Cross Turner at Coastal Carolina University started hatching the idea for the anthology Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture (LSU Press, 2015).

At the time of the publication of Mason professor Karina Korostelina’s book, Constructing the Narratives of Identity and Power: Self-Imagination in a Young Ukrainian Nation (Lexington Books, 2013), Ukraine had stepped to the forefront of the world’s news as the power struggle between the country, independent since the early 1990s, and Russia’s subsequent usurpation of Crimea grew violently hostile.

When Mason anthropology professor Linda J. Seligmann and her husband adopted a baby girl from China in 2000, the reception they received triggered her professional, as well as personal, curiosity. The experience led to her latest book, Broken Links, Enduring Ties: American Adoption across Race, Class, and Nation (Stanford University Press, 2013), which focuses on families who have adopted children from China and Russia, and families who have adopted African American children transracially.

When Mason sociologist Angela J. Hattery published her research monograph Intimate Partner Violence in 2008, the acquisition editor at Westview Press approached her to write a textbook. “I was hesitant at first since I’d never written a textbook before, but I knew it was desperately needed in the classroom,” says Hattery, the associate director of the Women and Gender Studies Program. The result is her eighth book, The Social Dynamics of Family Violence, which she co-wrote with Earl Smith, Rubin Distinguished Professor of American Ethnic Studies at Wake Forest University.

“Czars are a constitutional aberration,” says Mason policy professor Mark Rozell. “There is no official title of executive branch ‘czar’ in the U.S. Constitution, federal laws, or government manuals. Czars may in theory exist to merely provide advice to presidents, but the reality is that many of these officers have gone well beyond merely advising and often supervised statutory programs, administered a policy area, controlled appropriated funds, or regulated industries. White House and executive branch aides who exercise decision-making authority that has the force of law and are not confirmed by the Senate violate the U.S. Constitution.”